How to look into someone’s eyes

How to look into someone’s eyes and cure all forms of social anxiety using Auto Suggestion, the steps….

I am just passing on the knowledge I have acquired from beating this problem. Loads of people have commented at the bottom and some have been successful, so try these steps, you can beat this!….

If you can’t look someone in the eyes, what you have is fear. There are many variations of this fear. You could have a fear of what people may see when they look in your eys or you have an inferiority complex. I have come to realise that the root cause of my problem was an inferiority complex and that was preventing me from looking in someones eyes. I suffered terribly with this problem for well over 10 years, then I had had enough, I couldn’t take any more. All of a sudden I came extremely driven in sorting myself out, I got really forceful with myself and began commanding a phrase to myself over and over, my phrase at the time was “I am not scared of anyone or anything”. I really pushed this through my mind for days. Then one day, this particular person who had been dragging me down, mainly due to my eye contact problem started talking to me from the side. I said to myself “I am NOT SCARED” lifted my head, looked in one eye and felt No Fear! The rush of relief was indescribably amazing. I have since used this technique for the last 15 years, using different phrases for different negative feelings and it works!

It’s your fear that must be conquered before you will be able look someone in the eye……

Here are the steps…..

The first step is to realise that many other people suffer with this problem. Therefore, it is not YOUR personality, it is something to do with the way you think and feel and this is what must change. There are many anxiety forums, with hundreds of people on there, all with the same problem and you can find the links to some of them in the links section.

Step 2. Re-condition your mind. This is the most important part and must be followed to the letter! You have to repeat to yourself an instruction. Think of what is causing your anxiety or what is preventing you from looking in peoples eyes and create a phase to combat the feeling. Try to keep the message as positive as possible (I have since learnt this helps). Try something like “I am fearless, I am proud to look people in the eye!”. It is important to find what works best for you. You must repeat your phrase to yourself, with conviction, at every available opportunity, as many times as possible. i.e. when you wake up, brushing your teeth, driving your car, walking to the loo, while on the loo and any other time you can. You must however really force the instruction through your mind.

Step 3. Do this for two weeks.

Step 4. Now you should hopefully be ready to look someone in the eye and feel much better when doing it……….. On the fourteenth day, nearing mid morning (or a time of day when you feel better than you normally do), when someone tries to talk to you, repeat to yourself the instruction, “I am completely fearless of anyone or anything!” and do it while they are speaking. If they say something amusing/or you feel more comfortable than you normally would, now is the time, lift your head, smile and look them in the eye. Choose one eye and try to smile with eyes as well as your mouth.

Step 5. If when looking in their eye, the fear starts to creep back, say to yourself,“I am not scared!” and say it with extra conviction, look away if you need to and say it again.

Step 6. If they do not say anything funny and/or you don’t feel comfortable, wait for the right opportunity and go for it!

Step 7. If you keep repeating to yourself the instruction, you will eventually be able to look anyone in the eye, at any time you want and feel a lot more comfortable.

Step 8. Use this method of suggesting instructions to yourself positive messages like, “I am a good person, I will be successful, I enjoy speaking to people” and so on.

If you feel you know specifically what your fear is, i.e. you believe people think you are boring, or look funny, sound stupid etc, you can change the instruction to suit your problem and once one issue is dealt with, alter it again.

I have since discovered that this process has a name and has been around for a long time, it is called Auto Suggestion. You are using Auto Suggestion right now without even thinking about it. There are 2 parts to your mind. There is the front part, that you think quickly with, which is the bit with which you see the surrounding world. This part feeds your subconscious mind. You can think of your subconscious mind as a massive store room where information gets filed and organised. Once enough information is available, it is used by the front part of your mind, to make you act and feel the way you do. Therefore, if you are constantly feeding negative messages about yourself to your subconscious mind it is inevitable that you will feel bad. So use the steps mentioned above to feed your subconscious mind a positive message and you will overcome and even achieve anything!

These steps are very important but there are other things to think about that will help with the above and these are here.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me now. You will believe yourself, if when you say it, you say it with conviction and do it as I have explained above. I would love to hear how you get on with this process, whether you are successful or not. So please leave your comments.

Please comment, your details wont be used for spam, or be displayed on here.

Ben

39 thoughts on “How to look into someone’s eyes”

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Ben , First of all , thanks for this website and helping us. You are just awesome ! I am having the same issue. I just cant look into people’s eyes for whatever the reason is. I guess my problem is , when I look at them, I look into the eyes and not the face. I dont know how to overcome this. my work around is to smile and look away or hold something in my hand and keep busy with that, but I look like an idiot doing all these things. I think it started when I was around 15 yrs old , but it was not this bad. Now I am 34 and it is has got really really bad from past 8 yrs. I need help ! I wish I could take a pill and this goes away.

Firstly, I am so sorry I missed this comment. I get so much spam things like this get missed, I only hope your hanging in there O.K.! It is the fear of looking into peoples eyes that is preventing you from doing it and also probably an inferiority complex (however, no-one is inferior to anyone else, those who think they are superior are deluded and are setting themselves up for a fall), or there may be something that you are scared they will see when looking at you (this was the case with me and I had and inferiority complex). Therefore, if you can break the fear (which I have proved you can do) the problem WILL go away. Can I ask a). Have you tried my steps and done it with complete conviction? b) Have you read my new page on Meditation? I have recently found Meditation and Mindfulness (which is a fully secular teaching of Buddhism). It can greatly help with anxiety. Please get back to me as I am sure I can help you. Cheers Ben

One of my monitors noticed that i have this fear of looking people in eye … So while i sm in vecation i was reading your article … And you know… i thought, lets do this … So randomly i was geting something from the shop … And there was a girl who was looking staight in the eye with strong eye contact … I tried for moment but i couldnt look more … I felt when looking in her eyes something like her eyes was going through my soul .. It sound funny … and the other thing is that it made me feel this act not proper … This is not the first time to feel like that … What do you think ? I usually avoid looking at someone sleeping on saparated bed at same level as me … As it make me uncomfy too and feel this is too intimate thing to do with someone you are just fine with

Hi there Thank you for your comment. It sounds very similar to the problem I have described in the blog. Firstly, you need to remove the fear out of the situation. Your right, looking someone in the eyes for long spells at a time is either intimate or can pertray anger. It can also be a sign of internal strength. However, people naturally pick up on subtle changes in your expression and pupil dilation as you become scared when you look at them and this produces their reaction. If you can find the exact reason why you have fear, then great, begin the process of Auto Suggestion. Use a positive message to counter the negative message you have been feeding yourself all this time that is giving you fear. If you’re not sure what your fear is, then work on removing all your fear out of any situation by repeating something such as ‘I am fearless, I am strong, I can look anyone in the eye’. Do this for 2 weeks and then try to do look someone in the eye and let me know how you get on. I would really like to know if this helps, so we can help others. Cheers Ben